City of Lost Children

This futuristic 1995 phantasmagoria is a gorgeous amalgam of 19th- and 20th-century fantasy. A mad scientist, Krank (Daniel Emilfork), has been aging prematurely because hes incapable of dreaming. A group of mechanical-eyed thugs supplies Krank with city kids for a Frankenstein-like lab on an offshore rig, where he infiltrates their slumber and grabs their dreams for himself. Cheerfully enslaved to their visual obsessions, filmmakers Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro confront you with a dense, teeming canvas; their details are fascinating enough to goose you through the movie. (R) MICHAEL SRAGOW